Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Everyone in Wisconsin remembers the protests of 2011. Scott Walker introduced his bill ending collective bargaining rights for public employees, which led to massive protests for weeks in Madison and throughout the state.

The Protests in Madison, at the Capitol were really sparked by MTI mobilizing quickly and other teachers throughout the state then joining in. In order to be at the Capitol to protest though, that meant that the teachers had to call in sick.

BOY did that piss off the righties. All over the state they made sure that teachers were punished for calling in sick to protest. From right wing leaning school boards, to the crazy righty "press", their main mission was punishing anyone who dared to speak up. Apparently, no one on the right has ever called in to work sick, when they actually were not sick, to do something other than work. As this video of a gathering of 100% democrats clearly shows!

Not to be out crazied by Maciver or out rightied by anyone in the state, the Wisconsin State Journal spent almost a year trying to get personal health care records of the Madison Teachers. Unfortunately, after a ruling by Judge Colas(remember him), they had to turn over personal medical records and pay $25,000 of taxpayer money so the WSJ to see that the teachers called in sick to protest(which you would have known by spending a day inside the Capitol). State Journal Editor John Smalley pretended that he was doing the public a service here:

The State Journal filed the lawsuit in June after the district
refused a request for the notes, and a revised request for the
notes with teachers' names removed.

Smalley said that until the notes are evaluated it remains
unknown what story, if any, will be written, but it's part of the
newspaper's responsibility as a watchdog to examine government
actions and hold officials accountable.

"When school gets shut down for four days, that's a big story,"
Smalley said.

MADISON – Gov. Scott Walker took 54 personal days, not including weekends, through the first 10 months of 2012, a Wisconsin Reporter analysis shows.

Walker, who earns $144,423 a year plus benefits as governor, has
raised record amounts of campaign money in his first two years in
office.

And the Wisconsin Reporter review indicates that much of his
“personal” time was spent out of state on fundraising or campaign-style
trips.

“Governor Walker’s not the first governor to keep up a very ambitious
political travel schedule, but I have to say he’s taken it to a level
we haven’t seen before,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks election-related spending.

But Wait ....There's more. It turns out Wisconsin reporter is actually being generous!

In determining that Walker had taken 54 personal days through the end
of October, Wisconsin Reporter included any day in which the governor
worked less than 90 minutes on official state business but marked the
rest of the day as “personal.”

For example, several days were marked “personal” except for an early morning staff call.

But not included as a personal day was any day in which the governor worked more than 90 minutes.
That excludes, therefore, multiple days when Walker may have worked
as little as two hours on official business, or days when he worked only
a half-day.

According to the website, Walker hosted a “Romney Victory Inc.” event on July 11 in Washington, DC.
Walker’s calendar shows he had off July 9-12, except for a few phone calls before the National Governors Association meeting July 13-15 in Williamsburg, Va.

Walker also had “personal” time scheduled at the same time as a June 30 event, called a “reception with Paul Ryan and Scott Walker” at the Lake Geneva home of Vincent and Patricia Kolber.

Walker also has been criticized for detailing his policy plans
outside of Wisconsin, before sharing his goals before people back home, including remarks he made following a speech Nov. 16 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in California.

OOPS. The difference between Scott Walker taking a personal day and our teachers taking a personal day? Scott Walker still gets paid! Now we hold our teachers to higher standard than our Governor? I guess lead by example is a thing of the past. Now we have even redefined "conservatism" to mean get paid lots of taxpayer dollars to campaign!

4 comments:

I know the teachers in Port Washington ( eighty of them) were charged a total of $35,000 in wages and benefits for calling in sick on February 17th.. They knew that was the consequence and felt it was worth standing up for themselves and other union workers.

So basically the Governor takes a week off work every month for the past year (and that is only if we consider 90 minutes a full day's work; he may take more time off than that) and he ain't docked any sort of pay at all?!

I'd say we need some sort of reform in that area, but unfortunately the state GOP seems far more interested in increasing the gravy train (ie, increasing the per diem) instead.